Former US ambassador Joe Hockey blasts Sydney Airport ‘chaos’

Former treasurer Joe Hockey has called conditions at Sydney Airport worse than in the USA.

Former treasurer Joe Hockey has slammed Sydney Airport for his experience on Tuesday calling conditions for travellers “worse than the worst in the USA”.

The Daily Telegraph spoke to Mr Hockey from the airport before he caught a flight to Japan. The former ambassador to the US said his latest experience at Sydney Airport had been an “absolute mess”.

Having served as Australia’s ambassador to the US for four years, Mr Hockey said he had seen his fair share of badly run airports in the States but today’s scenes at Sydney Airport were by far the worst.

“It’s extremely chaotic and really disorganised,” he said.

“I’ve travelled a lot and this is the worst I’ve ever seen it here. It’s worse than anything I’ve ever seen at airports in the US.”

Joe Hockey took to X on Tuesday afternoon, sharing photos of long lines of travellers. Picture: X

Joe Hockey arriving at Sydney Airport last year. Picture: John Grainger

Mr Hockey said his flight was also running late, with large numbers of people being directed into lines to try and control the crowds.

Mr Hockey said he had witnessed a number of instances of airport staff being yelled at by angry and frustrated travellers.

“The faster Badgerys Creek Airport gets up and going the better,” he said.

“The problem with Sydney Airport is that it is overcrowded and not enough investment has been made to help manage these large numbers of people.

“We need a second airport up and running as soon as possible.”

Mr Hockey took to X on Tuesday afternoon, sharing photos of long lines of travellers while he waited to get on a bus to take him to the plane.

A Sydney Airport spokesperson said data showed operational performance has been strong during the school holiday period with 99.3 per cent of international passengers and 100 per cent of domestic passengers getting through security in under 10 minutes since December 1.

Sydney Airport has consistently ranked behind Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport in international rankings. In the 2023 Skytrax World Airport Awards it ranked 49th in the world behind both Melbourne and Brisbane airports.

Aviation experts believe Sydney Airport has operational difficulties outside of its control. Picture: AFP

Aviation experts believe part of the reason for its poor rankings is that the airport has operational difficulties outside of its control.

“One of the big problems with Sydney Airport is that it’s a political football because of the runway configuration, the limitation of the number of flights, the curfew,” said AirlineRatings.com editor Geoffrey Thomas.

“Operationally it’s a very challenging airport.”

Mr Thomas said world class airports like those in Dubai and Singapore were the best as they were government-owned and had billions of dollars poured into them.

He said it would be very diffcult for Sydney Airport to significantly upgrade terminals as they would face significant opposition from airlines not wishing to pay higher fees.

“They’re very tough negotiations - if Sydney Airport decided to build a Taj Mahal of an airport, the airlines would say: ‘absolutely forget it, we’re not paying for it, we’re not agreeing to it’,”

Aviation expert Tim Collins agreed that while flight curfews and runway configerations contributed to making Sydney Airport operationally difficult, he felt Mr Hockey was not used to queuing up like the rest of Sydney.

“Sometimes there’s a bit of a queue at the gate and sometimes you have to get on a bus to board the plane but that’s how airports work and sorry Joe, you don’t take government flights anymore,” he said.

“In terms of being worse than US airports, Joe Hockey must have had the VIP treatment because most US airports are absolutely dreadful - especially becasue US airlines overbook their flights so when you get to the gate they’re calling for volunteers to be offloaded.”